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1 .ARCOS 

MELICENT HUMASON LEE 






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MARCOS 

A MOUNTAIN BOY OF MEXICO 

BY 

MELICENT HUMASON LEE 



PICTURES BY 

BERTA AND ELMER HADER 


JUNIOR PRESS BOOKS 

ALB E RT%WH ITMAN 
^ 4 co 

CHICAGO 









ABOUT MARCOS 


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There is a story that is as old as the hills and as new as each day’s sun¬ 
rise. It is the backbone of folktale the world over, the story that never fails 
its listeners, and it begins: “There was a boy who set out to seek his fortune—” 

To that brave and happy band of adventurers, an undaunted procession 
that winds from the first beginnings of story-telling down to the present day, 
Marcos belongs. He is one with all those boys who have set out, in many 
countries and by various roads, on the same quest. We see him against the 
bright sun-steeped landscape of Mexico, a small lonely figure, very much in 
earnest, rather bewildered at times, but never losing sight of his object — a 
job in the big city and, some day, the purchase of that fine yoke of oxen 
and the plow which he dreams of driving home so proudly to the little 
mountain village where he was born. 

Simplicity is the essence of successful writing for children. In Marcos we 
find it combined with a somewhat rare quality, the ability to select out of a 
wealth of possible detail just what is essential to the story, and no more. 
There is no excess of description. What we see, we see through Marcos’ own 
eyes and just as he saw it; the mountain trail, the friendly old goatherd, the 
village with its gay adobe houses, the potter and the basket-maker and the 
hurrying market folk all with the clear, direct vision of a little boy seeing 
these things, watching these people, for the first time. And through the whole 
story, like the threads which Marcos so loved and which led him at last to his 
desire, run the instinctive love of beauty and color, the craftsman’s under¬ 
standing of things shaped by hand, which are the heritage of every Mexican 
child. 

It is good for children of all ages to learn how other children live, how 
other children work, the things they see and handle in daily life. In a day 
of constantly widening horizons the child’s story book plays a very important 
part. It is the first step in travel, in the knowledge of other lands and cus¬ 
toms. More and more of late years there has grown the need for stories of just 
this kind. Side by side with the many friends from far-off countries, from 
every corner of the world, to be met in the books and pictures of today Marcos 
will take his place in this growing saga of childhood. 


Margery Bianco. 


COPYRIGHT 1937 BY ALBERT WHITMAN & COMPANY 
LITHOGRAPHED IN THE U.S. A. 

1937 

JUN 18 1937 

©Cl ft 107314^ 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Marcos Leaves His Village.5 

The Swinging Bridge of Vines.11 

The Step in the Dark.17 

Down in the Marshes.23 

In the Hut of the Charcoal Burners.30 

The Yellow Bowl and the Apple Sauce.37 

The Soup Woman and the Centavos.45 


The Lady in Lilac.54 

The Old Convent. 62 

The Great City.70 

Marcos Finds a Master. 75 


Spanish Words Used in This Story 

Adios (Ah-dee-os'), a word used in greeting or parting, 
agave (ah-gah'-vay), wild century plant. 

Arre (Ah'-rrray), Go on! A command to burros or oxen, 
centavos (sen-tah'-vos), copper pennies, 
corredor (kor-ray-dor'), a veranda, 
el tigre (el tee'-gray), a ring-tailed cat, or jaguar, 
ex-convento (ax-kon-ven'-to), an old-time convent, 
mozo (mo'-so), a man servant. 

Oaxaca (Wah-hah'-kah), a city in a state of the same name, 
olla (oy'-yah), a clay jar. 

Pase! (Pah-say'!), Come in! 

patio (pah'-tee-o), courtyard of a house. 

rebozo (ray-bo'-so), a scarf worn by women. 

senora (sayn-yor'-ah), lady, Mrs. 

serape (say-rah'-pay), a blanket. 

serrano (say-rrrah'-no), a mountaineer. 

siesta (see-es'-tah), a rest in the middle of the day. 

tortilla (tor-tee'-yah), flat, round, pancake-like bread. 

Zapotec (Sah'-po-tek), race of Indians in Oaxaca. 










He peered out of the gray fringe of his serape 











































































































































I 

Marcos Leaves His Village 


X^ARLY dawn in the mountains. Early dawn in the little Zapotec 
Indian village hidden among the pine trees. Early dawn creeping 
into the tiny, thatched hut. 

Marcos turned over on his mat of woven palm. Cold dawn touched 
his shoulder. He turned over again. Cold dawn met his face. And 
then he remembered! 

This was the day he was going to the great city of Oaxaca to find 
work! This was the day he was going to leave his home. 

He peered out of the gray fringe of his serape, or blanket. Dawn 
was creeping through the cracks between the cane stalks of which the 
little hut was built. Its silvery fingers touched the sleeping forms of 
his mother and father on their woven mat in their corner. They 
touched a cinnamon-colored hen in another corner, her feathers fluffed 
over her baby chicks. They touched a sleeping white goat in another 
comer. 


5 





















Now the Indian boy rose stiffly, for the night had been cold on the 
mountain top. He stretched and stretched his legs and arms until he 
felt easy again. 

Then he took his pointed hat from a peg and set it over his thick, 
black hair. He rolled up his sleeping mat and rain cape of palm into a 
snug bundle and slung them across his back. He folded up his gray 
serape and tossed it upon his shoulder. 

Now he was ready for the trail. He glanced once more at his sleep¬ 
ing parents, and stole out of the door of the hut. 

“I will not wake them,” he said to himself, “for they are tired out 
from hoeing the cornfield yesterday, and they know that I must take 
the trail at dawn.” 

For just one moment Marcos stood before the hut and looked 
round at the little village he was going to leave. This was his home. 
He had never known another — he, a little serrano, a mountaineer. 
Many of the Zapotecs were serranos. 

Where would he live in the great city? Would he lie down and 
sleep on his mat before the carved door of some rich man—guarding, 
always guarding, even though he slept? Would he crawl under the 
branches of a tree in a park and snooze at night, and in the day¬ 
time black the shoes of the Mexican gentlemen who sat on the fine 
benches of which his father had told him? Where would he live in 
the great city? 

How friendly his village looked in the early light of dawn. Its 
little cane huts seemed as delicate as bird cages, but they were 
strong enough to shed mountain storms. The palm thatch which 
villagers had gathered from palm trees in a warm little canyon 
below, was as shaggy as the hair of his goat. The huts had no 
windows, because the sun could always creep through the cracks, 
and the smoke of the fire could always creep out. 

Everybody was asleep. The dogs were out hunting rabbits in 
the wild mountain meadows beyond. So there was not even a 
dog’s cold nose to nestle into his hand and bid him good-bye. 

Marcos walked slowly toward the stone fence that hemmed in 
the village. He unlatched the gate, stepped out, and closed it again. 
And now he took the trail. 

He had never followed this trail very far. He had often scram¬ 
bled over the rocks beside it to herd the goats, or gone down into 


6 


the meadow to hoe the corn. But he had gone only a little way 
along the trail itself. \Afhat would he find at the end? The great 
city, which his father had described to him so many times. Two 
days, three days, maybe, he would be on the trail before he reached 
it. 

He took a hitch in the cord of his net so that his apples wouldn’t 
bounce so much on his back, and rolled up his trousers to give 
his legs more freedom. Then down the trail he trudged. 

His little black hat of rough felt looked like the hat of a gnome. 
It was pointed like a roof so that thunder showers in the summer 
rainy season — and now was the season — would slide off it. His 
cotton jacket and trousers, once white, were the color of moun¬ 
tain earth, and had been torn many times by brambles. Around 
his. waist, under his coat, he wore a red cotton sash, the fringes of 
which dangled below the edge of his coat. 

Down, down, down the trail he trudged under fragrant sprays 
of pine. He reached up and pulled off a handful of needles as he 
walked to sniff their perfume. How he loved these slender needles! 
If they were joined together what a long green string they would 
make! 

At last he was out of sight of the village. He stopped a mo¬ 
ment and stared at the scene before him. How big the world was! 
Far in the distance, farther than a bird would wish to fly without 
resting, he thought, rose three great, towering peaks. The rising 
sun was brushing them with pink color like the juice of wild 
berries. These mountains seemed to float before his eyes. They 
seemed alive and sparkling with hidden fires. 

Far down in a canyon off the trail he saw the sun-dipped fronds 
of the palm trees where the serranos had gathered thatch for their 
huts. In another little canyon on the other side of the trail he 
saw a vivid green patch of cane, from which the huts were made. 

He trudged on again, jouncing his net of apples into place. 
Down, down, down. 

Suddenly he saw the face of an old Indian peering through the 
sprays of a pine tree. The Indian was crossing the boy’s path. 
His pointed hat was rusty with age, and his gray serape was shab¬ 
by and full of holes. 

Marcos stopped short, and the two serranos stared at one an¬ 
other. 


7 


Then the old man spoke. 

“Where are you going?” 

“To the great city,” said Marcos a little proudly, for this Indi¬ 
an looked as if he had never been to the great city. 

The old man shook his head, and his hand trembled on his knot¬ 
ty pine stick. 

“You will not find the city good, my son,” said he. “There are 
too many people and not enough stars. The air is caught in an 
olla (a jar), and will not come out.” He took off his rusty little 
hat and let the morning breeze ruffle his gray locks. 

Marcos hung his head. 

“Why do you go?” asked the old man. 

“I am going to find work,” said Marcos. “I want to work until 
I can save enough centavos to buy a pair of oxen for my father. 
A pair of oxen to plow the land, to raise corn, to make flour for 
tortillas .” 

“Ah-h-h!” said the old man. “I see. Oxen are good. Oxen are 
strong. Oxen plow well. Go to the city and earn the centavos for 
the oxen, and then come back to your village and help your father 
plow the corn fields.” 

“I shall come back,” said Marcos, “and help my father plow the 
fields when the rains of the rainy season wet them. I will come 
back then. But there are many needs always, and I shall stay in the 
city in the dry season.” 






“Where are you going?” 





































“It is well,” said the old man. “And now, what are you carry¬ 
ing in your net?” His worn old eyes peered over the boy’s shoulder. 

“Apples,” said Marcos, “little green apples from the warm, 
sunny hillsides below our village. Some say that the Spaniards 
planted them somewhere near the city, and that their seeds blew 
up to our mountains. But I do not believe it. I think they are wild 
apples.” 

“So do I,” said the old man. “They were here when I was a boy 
and when my father was a boy and when my grandfather was a boy. 
They are wild. But yours are better than those that grow near my 
village. Will you trade me some for a few tortillas?” 

He plucked three of the thin, pancake-like wafers, the Mexican 
bread, out of his jacket, the two front ends of which he had tied to¬ 
gether to make a blouse. 

Marcos suddenly remembered that he had eaten no breakfast, 
and that he was hungry. 

“I will trade with you,” he said, and he gathered some apples 
out of his net and rolled them into a net which the old man held 
open. Then he took the tortillas eagerly, and set his strong white 
teeth into them. The edges of the tortillas were ragged, and there 
were holes in them, but that didn’t matter. They were good and 
hearty and satisfied his morning hunger. 

“Did you think you could go as far as the great city without 
food?” asked the old man. 

Marcos flushed under his golden-brown skin. 

“I hoped to trade my apples on the way,” he said. But he didn’t 
add that he hated to wake his sleeping mother to make tortillas in 
the early dawn, and there were none left from the night before. 

“Ah, that is well,” said the old man with a smile. “Trade for 
everything or pay for everything. Ask of no one. Do not be a 
beggar.” 

“I will never be that!” said Marcos stoutly. “Never!” 

And so he parted with the old man, and each went his own 
way. The old one trudged slowly up a little goat path to milk his 
goat, and the young one trudged quickly down toward the great 
city. Down, down, down. 


10 



The Swinging Bridge of Vines 

Now it was golden afternoon. Warmer and warmer it grew, as 
the trail wound into a valley. The fragrant pines were far away. 
Marcos felt homesick as he breathed deeply and no longer smelled 
them. Pines! He never thought he would be so far away from his 
pines! 

Golden-green leaves of wild banana trees now swayed over his 
path, and ferns as lacy as feathery clouds on windy days, sprawled 
in the hollows nearby. 

He left the trail, plunged down into a warm little canyon, and 
breathed the steaming odor of strange plants. A large white but¬ 
terfly flitted like a ghost before his eyes, and he stopped short and 
stared at it. Was it a spirit? He had never seen such a great winged 
creature. 

And even as he stared, the sun no longer glistened upon the 
white butterfly. A shadow floated over the little glade, a growl of 
thunder boomed through the silence, and soft, splashing raindrops 
fell. 


11 








“The thunder shower!” said Marcos to himself, unrolling his rain 
cape of palm ribbons as he spoke. He shook out the folds and 
threw the cape around his shoulders. Then he pulled his funny 
black cap over his eyes, and ran into the thickest part of the banana 
jungle. 

Under a roof of wide, drooping banana leaves he stood, while 
the rain splashed, the thunder rolled, and the lightning wove its 
shining thread of gold through the trees. 

As the rain grew into a steady hum, the boy peered up into the 
tree above him. He spied a cluster of bananas, and he reached up 
and pulled one down. It had a thick, woody taste, but he liked it. 
He was very hungry now after his long tramp. He reached up and 
pulled down another and ate it. Then another. 

“These bananas will keep me from hunger until nightfall,” he 
murmured to himself, “and then — who knows? Perhaps I can 
trade a few of my apples for food and shelter in some hut. Perhaps 
I will lie down hungry in some little hollow.” 

He could not eat his apples because they were green and hard. 
They needed cooking, and he had no matches. 

At the thought of going to sleep hungry he tied the front ends 
of his jacket into a blouse, just as the old man had done. He 
stuffed a few bananas into this blouse, so that he stuck out like a 
fat, little, cooking olla. 

“Now I have enough food for two days, anyway,” Marcos said 
to himself. And as he spoke, he felt a warm ray of sunlight on his 
cheek, and he looked up through the banana leaves and saw that 
the thunder storm had stopped. It had stopped almost as sudden¬ 
ly as it began. 

He rolled up his rain cape, plunged up the slope of the warm 
little canyon again, crossed over to the trail and peered before him. 

The shadows on the towering mountains far beyond were the 
color of wild grapes, and long chocolate shadows lay across the 
dusty trail. Late afternoon had slipped into the mountains while he 
was waiting in the rain under the banana trees. He must hurry if 
he would find a shelter before nightfall. He ran along the trail, 
crossed a meadow, and climbed a mountain slope that grew steeper 
and steeper and steeper. And then — 

He stopped on the mountain crest and stared. Under his 


12 



He reached up and pulled one down. 








































pointed, black hat his dark eyes shone wide. One lock of black hair 
curled around his cheek like a horn. His chest rose and fell quick¬ 
ly under his dusty jacket. 

He was staring at a deep, wide canyon that divided this moun¬ 
tain from the mountain beyond. Steep, jagged rocks faced each 
mountain. And far down in the hollow between these rocks ran a 
river that looked like a thread of blue yarn that a magician had 
touched into life. 

But that was not all. Hung from mountain side to mountain 
side was a swinging bridge of vines! It looked as frail as a spider’s 
web, as it glistened in the setting sun. It dipped ’way down in the 
center. 

How could Marcos have forgotten this swinging bridge? His 
mother and father had often spoken of it. But somehow, it had 
seemed to him more like a dream-bridge than a real bridge. It 
seemed to belong to the old folk tales which his father was always 
telling him. 

It seemed to belong to the stories of the Zapotecs, his people, 
fleeing from the Spaniards, their conquerors — the serrano Zapotecs 
in the mountains, and the lowland Zapotecs below. It had never 
seemed real to him, somehow. But now he would have to cross it. 

Slowly he wove his way down among the rocks of the bank 
until he stood just opposite the swinging bridge of vines. Right 
across the chasm it stretched, quiet now that no footstep was upon it. 

The boy remembered a story that his father told him one day. 
An old woman of the tribe was afraid to cross the bridge, and one 
of the men blindfolded her with his red cotton sash, so that she 
could not see the water far below. Then she crossed easily. But 
one man walked before her and one behind. 

Marcos shut his eyes. His heart beat like the click of the wooden 
looms that wove the cotton sashes at home. He looked back toward 
the trail over which he had come. Would he have to turn back? 

“There is no one to blindfold me with his sash,” he thought. 
“Shall I blindfold myself? That would not be wise, for there is 
no one to walk before me, and no one to walk behind me. No one! 
No one! Not even the old man of the tortillas .” He thought a long 
moment. “Shall I go back?” 

And then he laughed aloud and faced the bridge again. “Am I 


14 


an old woman?” he asked himself. “Am I scared of a vine bridge 
which my father and mother have crossed for many moons? Which 
all of my people have crossed for many moons? If this vine bridge 
holds others it will hold me. How can I reach the great city un¬ 
less I cross this bridge? It will always stand between me and the 
great city.” 

If he ever earned enough centavos to buy a pair of oxen he would 
have to drive them through the bed of the river in the dry season. 

Now bravely he set one dusty brown foot on the bridge and 
clasped the vine rail with one hand. The bridge swayed like a 
spider web in the wind. He shut his eyes very tight, then he opened 
them wide again. He took one step forward, and then another, and 
then another. Soon he was walking softly and slowly in the very 
middle of the bridge. 

He kept his eyes on the mountain before him. “I mustn’t look 
down!” he thought, but it seemed as if he must look down. A voice 
in the river seemed to be calling, “Look down! Look down!” 

And then Marcos laughed aloud again. “You can’t fool me, old 
river! I won’t look down — but even if I did, you wouldn’t make me 
dizzy! This is the bridge of my people and I am at home on you!” 

And so he crossed the bridge of vines for the first time, and he 
felt ashamed that he had been afraid of such a natural and beauti¬ 
ful thing. 

Vines — vines woven together into such strength! Vines of his 
own mountains. Tiny threads woven into a strong sash as the threads 
of his cotton sash had been woven! He was proud of the vines of his 
mountains. 

As he walked up the rocks on the opposite mountain he plucked 
another banana out of his blouse, and set his white teeth into the 
firm flesh of it. 

“Ha-ha!” he chuckled. “I have done the hardest thing first. Now 
things will not seem so hard in the great city.” 

But as he scrambled over the rocks at the mountain’s crest, 
he didn’t know that the face of an old man was peering at him 
around the shoulder of another mountain peak. 

For the old man of the tortillas had not found his goat where 
he had tied her. She had broken away from her rope, and had 


15 


leaped up the rocky side of a mountain near by, and the old man 
had seen her laughing at him from the top of a peak. 

Up and up he had followed her and caught her, and while he 
was leading her down from her perch, he had spied the old-time 
swinging bridge below. At the near end of the bridge was his new 
friend Marcos, his face turned away from the bridge, turned toward 
the homeward trail. 

And the old man had said softly, just as if Marcos were listening 
to him: 

“Cross the bridge, my little friend. Many bridges will you find 
to cross, and you can never go anywhere unless you cross a bridge. 
There will be bridges of toil and bridges of sorrow and bridges of 
pain. Cross the bridge!” 

And just at that moment, Marcos had faced about again and 
stepped upon the bridge that led to the great city! 













Ill 

The Step in the Dark 

It was almost dusk when Marcos saw a little village on a hill. 
The huts were built of carrizo cane and thatched with tules from 
the marshes, and they had only one door and no windows. He ran 
up a little path and peered over the stone wall. 

Nobody seemed to live in the village at all. Nobody sat in 
the doorways or walked up and down the little paths. He peered 
closer, and saw threads of smoke squeezing through the chinks 
between the canes, and he said to himself: 

“They are all inside their little huts eating their supper, while 
I stand outside cold and hungry.” 

He looked over his shoulder at his net of apples. 

“I will trade some of my apples for a night’s lodging and a good 
warm supper,” he said to himself. “I will not have to eat just 
bananas.” 


17 






























































So thinking, he pushed open the little gate and stepped into the 
village. No one ran out to meet him, and why should they? This 
was not his home. He had no companions here that he knew. 

He walked up one little path that led to a hut on a knoll. This 
hut smelled good. It smelled of wet tules on the roof — wet 
from the thunder shower. It smelled of chicken feathers. It smelled 
of savory cooking. 

Just behind this hut was a smaller hut that seemed to belong to 
it. Who could be living in that other hut? Why did these people 
need more than one house? Marcos was wondering about all these 
things as he peered into the doorway. 

A cozy scene met his curious eyes. An old woman was sitting 
on the ground by a glowing fire, flipping over a tortilla on a clay 
cooking plate. A bowl of stew simmered over the fire. Over the 
old woman’s lap skittered fluffy baby chicks of bright yellow, search¬ 
ing for the seeds that she had just flung out. 

“Those baby chicks are safe for the night,” thought Marcos. 
“Where is the mother hen, I wonder?” 

In a corner near the old woman he saw the mother hen, blink¬ 
ing at him with angry eyes. 

“Do not be afraid, little mother,” thought Marcos. “I won’t 
hurt you. I want shelter just as much as you do.” 

Just then the old woman looked up and saw him standing there. 
“Paddy-ooch'-ee,” she said, in the native tongue of the serranos. 
“Good day. What do you wish? A basket?” 

“A basket?” Marcos stared. He didn’t see any baskets. 

The old woman saw his surprise, for her eyes always saw every¬ 
thing — every flicker, every frown on a face. 

“You are in the house of Antonio, the basket maker,” she said, 
“but he has gone to the city with baskets to sell, and he will not 
return until dawn, I think. I am his aunt. I live here and cook 
his tortillas. Why do you come?” 

At the word tortillas, Marcos remembered why he came. 

“I want to trade some of my green apples for supper and shelter 
for the night,” he said. “They make fine apple sauce.” 

“Supper and lodging you shall have,” said the old woman. 


18 


Pour some of your apples in here.” And she held out a brown 
clay dish. 

The apples rattled into it as Marcos poured. He gave her a fair 
lot of them. Then his eyes glanced at the tortillas and the stew. 

‘Sit down,” said the old woman. Marcos sat down on the earth 
beside her, and they ate a cozy little supper by the fire — the old 
woman and the boy. 

When they had supped well, the old woman spoke: 

“The lids are pulling down over your eyes and your head nods. 
I will show you where you can sleep. I am glad that you have come 
tonight, because I do not like to be alone.” 

“But you are not alone,” said Marcos, nodding his head toward 
the other huts which he knew circled them in the dusk outside. 

“One can be alone in the midst of others,” muttered the old 
woman. “I do not like to have the baskets unguarded. Antonio 
always sleeps beside them.” 

“But who in the village would steal — ” began Marcos. 

“Hush!” warned the old woman. “Do not think thoughts like 
those, else they will come true.” She lighted a fire brand as she spoke. 

She led Marcos out the door, around the hut, and into the little 
hut in back of the other. 

“Ah!” thought Marcos. “Now I know why these people have 
two houses. One of them is the house of baskets.” 

The old woman held the fire brand in the doorway of the basket 
hut. Marcos opened his dark eyes very wide. He had never seen so 
many baskets. They were all stacked one within the other, and 
they reached to the rafters above. 

Very deep baskets they were — burro-baskets, for burros to 
carry. Marcos had often seen his people bring home these baskets, 
but he had never seen a basket house before. 

“Unroll your mat in this corner,” said the old woman, pointing 
to a clean corner where no baskets were piled. “This is where 
Antonio sleeps when he is home.” 

While Marcos was unrolling his mat, the old woman slipped 
away, and the hut was left in darkness. 


19 



“I am taking Antonio’s place,” thought Marcos, as he rolled 
himself up in his warm serape. “I must keep one eye open while I 
sleep.” But how could he do that? 

Already he had shut both eyes, and he fell into a deep, deep sleep. 
A little scratching sound woke him up. He sat up straight and lis¬ 
tened. Then he lay down again. 

“I know that sound,” he mumbled to himself. “It is a little 
mouse. She is chewing one of Antonio’s baskets.” Many and many 
a time had he heard the scratching and chewing and thumping of 
mice in the little hut at home. 

He closed his eyes and slept again. A second time he sat up 
straight. He listened. He certainly heard something different now. 
He strained his ears until he thought they were going to burst. He 
wished they were as wide as a burro’s ears. 


20 






















He sat up straight and listened. 
































































He heard stealthy footsteps creeping up to the door. Moonbeams 
shone on a dark hand touching the door frame. A shadowy form, 
a dark something in another hand, and then — 

Marcos leapt to his feet. The thief was going to throw the bas¬ 
kets into that dark blanket he held, and glide away. Marcos tore 
the blanket from the dusky hand. 

“Out of here — out!” he cried, in a choking voice. 

Silence, and then a low chuckle. “Is that the way you greet an 
old woman who wants to give you a warmer cover this cold night? 
There has been no fire in the basket house, and—” 

“Oh!” whispered Marcos. “I thought, I thought —” 

“I know what you thought,” chuckled the old woman. “You 
thought someone was going to steal Antonio’s baskets, and you 
thought we could trace him by the blanket that you were going to 
snatch. I wish that you lived here all the time, Antonio goes away 
so often. But now, wrap yourself in that blanket and sleep, for it 
is still a long time until dawn.” And she stole away. 

Marcos smiled to himself in the dark. He wished that he lived 
here, too. He would gather faggots for the old woman’s fire; he 
would help Antonio cut the canes for his baskets; he would learn 
the basket trade. And when Antonio went away to the great city, 
he would sleep in the basket house and guard the baskets. Never 
would he let anyone steal them. 

Then a thought choked him. “The great city! I must go to the 
great city. Shall I find kind old women there who will cook my sup¬ 
per? Who will think of me on cold nights and bring me warm 
blankets? Shall I sleep in some cozy corner of a basket house, or 
in the cold doorway of a stranger’s house?” 

So thinking, he fell asleep, and he dreamed that the great city was 
built of baskets. The walls were woven of carrizo canes like the 
walls of the baskets, and they were as high as the mountains that 
circled his own village. And through their chinks drifted the smoke 
of supper fires. 

And as he slept, the little mouse chewed a hole in one of An¬ 
tonio’s baskets, where tiny, fragrant seeds from the tule marshes 
had clung to the tule basket rim. 


22 



IV 

Down in the Marshes 

While Marcos was eating his breakfast of stew and tortillas with 
the old woman, she said: 

“Antonio came back in the early dawn, while you were still 
asleep. He peeked into the basket hut and saw you, but he did not 
wake you.” 

“Where is he now?” asked Marcos, taking another bite into his 
tortilla. 

“He is cutting canes in the marshes,” said the old woman. 
“Canes for his new baskets.” 

“And I will cut canes, too,” said Marcos, wiping his mouth with 
the back of his little brown hand. “This is a good breakfast and I 
wish to earn it.” 

“Cut canes then,” said the old woman. “It is well. Antonio 
never has enough help.” She rose and drew a very large knife from 
the thatched wall of the hut. 


23 






Marcos took the knife and looked out of the little doorway. He 
saw many other huts snuggled about him, the smoke from break¬ 
fast fires oozing through their walls. He saw Indian women gath¬ 
ering faggots, or bearing water jars on their heads, on their way to 
the spring. He saw Indian men feeding and watering their burros. 

Now he ran out of the hut, down a hill, and into the marshes at 
the back of the village. Green and inviting rose the fringe of cane 
along the marshes. Already the boy could smell its freshness. 
Among the long curling leaves he saw the figure of a man in white 
coat and trousers. 

Marcos ran quickly until he set foot in the moist marshes, then 
shyness tugged him back. He stood silently in the wet sand. 

Clack, clack! rang the sound of the breaking canes as the knife 
swished through them and cut them down to the earth. Cane upon 
cane swished down. Their free, growing life in the marshes was 
over now. They were almost ready to be woven into baskets. Soon 
they would be ready for their trip to market on the sides of a burro. 


24 






















































He saw Indian women beating water jars on their heads. 




















The clacking stopped. The man raised his hand to wipe off the 
sweat from his forehead. He turned. He saw Marcos. 

“Ho!” he chuckled. “You are the boy who guarded my baskets 
last night. And did a thief steal some of them in a blanket?” 

Marcos flushed under his dark skin. He wished he had not come 
to help this man. He stood ready to fly toward the hut. 

“But you made my old aunt glad,” said the other quickly, see¬ 
ing that he had hurt the boy’s feelings. “She is afraid to stay alone. 
She does not like to have me go to the city. Do you want to help 
me cut canes?” He had seen the knife in the boy’s hand. 

Marcos stepped toward him. “I want to help you cut canes to 
pay for my breakfast,” he said simply. 

“Canes you shall cut,” said Antonio. “I often wish I had a strong 
boy like you to cut my canes. Then I would have only to weave 
my baskets.” 

“There it is again!” thought Marcos. “A chance to stay here 
and earn my meals and lodging. But how could I ever earn 
enough to buy a pair of oxen? And that is what my father wants 
me to do! No — I will go on to the great city. I must!” 

And as if he knew what the boy was thinking, Antonio said: 

“Are you going to the city?” 

“Ay, to the great city,” said Marcos, and his heart felt as heavy 
as though a load of tiles was fastened to it. He smelled again the 
freshness of the cane; he felt the cool wet sand between his toes; 
he heard the gentle rustle of the cane leaves. What sights and sounds 
and smells would there be in the great city? 

“And why are you going there?” asked Antonio, as the two of 
them drove their knives through the base of the canes, and the canes 
fell with a soft swish on the earth. 

“To buy an oxen and a plow for my father,” said Marcos. 

Cla-a-ack! Cla-a-ack! Swish! More canes were cut; more canes 
fell. 

Then Antonio said half aloud, half to himself: 

“Some there are who like to plow, and some who like to sow, but 
it seems to me that the weaving of a basket is best.” 


26 


As he spoke, Marcos was resting a little moment, and shred¬ 
ding a cane leaf between his pointed fingers. He thought to him¬ 
self: 

“This leaf is woven of tiny threads. Strong threads. Threads 
like those in the bridge of vines.” 

Again he cut a cane with a cla-a-ack, and again it fell with a swish 
to the ground. 

When many canes were cut, the two of them tied them in bun¬ 
dles and threw the bundles over their shoulders. They plodded up 
the hill. The old woman was waiting for them at the back of the hut. 

“We will show the boy how to make a basket,” she chuckled. 
“I know he doesn’t want to go away yet.” 

Marcos smiled. He felt as if he didn’t want to go away, ever. 

On the ground near him lay the round unfinished base of a large 
burro basket. It was shaped like the spokes of a wheel, the split canes 
sticking out all round from the center. When the base was finished, 
thought Marcos, the canes would be bent up straight to make the sides. 

Antonio and Marcos laid the canes near the basket-base, and An¬ 
tonio and his old aunt sat down beside them. Marcos squatted down, 
too, and watched them carefully. 

Antonio took his long knife, scraped off the heavy husks of canes 
and stripped off the crackling leaves. Blood oozed from the side of his 
finger, because the edge of the husk was very sharp. Then he quickly 
scraped off the knots in the joints of the cane. 

The old woman took her knife from Marcos, and split the canes 
into slender strips. Now they were ready for the weaving. 

Then while the old woman was still splitting more and more canes, 
Antonio took up a slender strip and wove it so swiftly in and out the 
basket canes that Marcos could hardly see what he was doing. The 
circle of the base grew wider and wider, and soon Antonio would 
bend up the canes and weave the sides. 

As Marcos stood there watching, he heard the creak of an ox cart 
in the fields beyond, and saw two creamy oxen trudging across the 
freshly plowed field. He heard the cry of the ox driver, “Arre! Arre! 
Go on! Go on!” 

And then he remembered his errand to the great city, and the task 
that was before him, and he thought to himself: 


27 



And so he bade them “ Adi os.” 
























































































































“I gave apples to the old woman for my supper and shelter, and 
I cut canes for my breakfast. Now I can go.” 

“Going, eh?” asked Antonio, guessing his thoughts. “You have a 
long way ahead of you.” He swiftly wove a fresh strip of cane into 
the basket. 

“Ay, a long way,” said the old woman, shaking her head. 

“But oxen are at the end of it,” said Antonio, weaving another 
strand over and under. “And may they be good and strong!” 

“The ones I choose will be good and strong!” said Marcos. He ran 
into the basket hut, wrapped up his palm mat and rain cape, and flung 
them upon his shoulder with his serape and apple net. 

And so he bade them “Adios,” and trudged down the hill into the 
trail again. 

As he drifted out of sight around a curve, the old woman said to 
her nephew: 

“Ah! You were a boy like that, Antonio, with your eyes always 
facing ahead. When you were a tiny lad you used to run to the 
marshes and cut little strips off the canes and weave tiny baskets for 
the little burro that you made out of clay. And you would fill your 
baskets with little balls that you called pottery. Ah, well I remember 
that. And now you have a basket house, and your baskets are the 
best and finest in the great city.” She smiled proudly. 

“Ay!” sighed Antonio. “I always wanted to make baskets. I 
never cared about the plowing and sowing. And I do not think that 
this boy cares just for those, either. That is his father’s wish. It is not 
his. He has his own wish.” 

“And what is it?” asked the old woman curiously. 

“I do not quite know,” said Antonio slowly. “I do not think it is 
his wish to make baskets, though he seemed to like the cutting of the 
canes. I think—” And then he shook his head. “I do not know. I do 
not think he knows, yet.” 

And as Marcos trudged along the trail, he thought to himself: 

“I wish I didn’t have to go away from those good people. I liked 
the rustle of the cane leaves.” 


29 



V 

In the Hut of the Charcoal Burners 


It was dusk again when Marcos spied a few huts on a hill top. They 
were perched like goats among the rocks. The lower half of them was 
built of stone, and the upper half of adobe, or sun-dried bricks. The 
adobe was not painted over, so it was just the color of the mud from 
which it was made. A heavy thatch of palm leaves, like bushy eye¬ 
brows, roofed the huts. 

Near one of the houses a strong tall Indian was unloading a burro, 
and a little girl was carrying a bundle of faggots toward a doorway. 

“Ho!” thought Marcos. “Now I can trade some of my apples for 
supper and lodging. Bananas they have plenty, for warm canyons lie 
all around them.” 

He left the trail and stepped up a little goat path which led toward 
the huts. As his shadowy figure loomed nearer the stone fence which 
hemmed them in, a bunch of dogs rushed out of the open gate, snarl¬ 
ing and yapping. Their lips were drawn back from their ugly teeth. 

“Hey!” growled the strong tall man in a voice of thunder. “Come 
back here!” The dogs tucked their tails between their legs and shrank 
back. 


30 











The Indian stepped to the gate, and the little girl followed him, 
clutching her faggots and staring and staring. 

“What do you want?” asked he, as Marcos trudged up to the gate. 
The man’s face was stained with black smudges. 

“I have apples to trade for my supper and lodging,” said Marcos, 
jerking his head toward the net which hung over his shoulder. “Will 
you trade?” 

“Ay!” said the man, peering at him closely. “Come in.” 

Marcos entered the gateway and the Indian closed the gate, leav¬ 
ing the dogs outside. Now he was already snug and safe in this little 
cluster of huts. 

Without a word the tall Indian led the way up a little rise to his 
own hut. Marcos glanced about him. He saw empty blackened nets 
lying on the ground by the burro, and he knew that they had been 
filled with charcoal. Marcos guessed that the man had just returned 
from the great city below, where he had sold charcoal to the house¬ 
wives. The boy smelled charcoal burning somewhere in the pits. 
Ah! These were huts of charcoal burners. 

He followed the tall man into the little doorway. It was dusky 
in the hut except for the glow of a fire in the center of the earth floor. 
Sitting by the fire was a youngish woman stirring goat stew in a 
brown clay olla. The fumes from the stew mingled with the smell of 
charcoal which clung to the rafters of the hut. A fresh bundle of 
faggots was lying by the fire—the faggots that the little girl had been 
carrying. 

“She is somewhere in the hut now,” thought Marcos, and he peered 
into the dusky shadows of every corner. She was crouching in one of 
them like a scared rabbit. 

The man uttered a few words to the woman. She picked up a fresh 
wad of dough which lay on a clay dish beside her, and patted it into 
a tortilla, flinging it from palm to palm of her hands. Clip, clop, clip, 
clop, sounded her patting through the tiny hut. She tossed the tortilla 
down upon a shallow plate over the fire. Then clip, clop, clip, clop 
again. She was making another tortilla. She started to turn over 
the first tortilla with her fingertips. It stuck. 

“Ah!” she grunted. “Gloria, come here! Grind me more chalk for 
my plate.” 

The little girl crept shyly out of her comer, picked up a rock and 


31 



Marcos and the little family squatted around the blaze. 































pounded into powder some white chalk that lay upon a stone slab. The 
woman scraped the cooking plate clean, powdered it with the chalk, 
and tossed another tortilla upon it. 

Soon supper was ready. Marcos and the little family squatted 
around the blaze and held out their clay dishes to the woman. She 
filled them with good goat stew and handed them each tortillas. They 
folded their tortillas into little scoops, dished up the stew with them, 
and then ate their tortilla scoops, too. They sucked heartily and licked 
their fingers. 

The night wind rose and blew around the hut, and Marcos was 
glad that he was snug and cozy within friendly walls. He was glad 
he was not trying to keep warm in some damp little hollow. 

Clip, clop, clip, clop — more tortillas. Swish — as the wooden 
spoon ladled out more stew. And always the sighing wind. 

Then the man spoke to Marcos: 

“Where are you going?” 

“To the great city,” said Marcos. 

“What are you going to do there?” 

“Work,” said Marcos. But even as he spoke his heart grew as heavy 
as a bag of stones, because he did not know what work he would find. 

But the man said simply: 

“Ay, you will find work. You are young and strong.” But he did 
not say aloud what he added to himself, “And you have a pleasant 
way with you.” 

The woman pointed to the apples and chuckled. Marcos gathered 
handfuls of them and poured them into a bowl which she held out. He 
filled the bowl. Two or three apples rolled out, and the little girl 
caught one and set her teeth into it. But the woman snatched it away 
from her. 

“No, no! It must be cooked first,” she said. 

Now they all sat gazing into the fire, for they were too drowsy to 
talk. Once the little girl rose secretly and stole across the earth floor 
of the hut. She opened the door a crack and peered out. 

“Hey!” cried her father. “Come back!” She crept back and nestled 
by her mother. 


33 


“She lost a little kid today,” said her father. “She has been hunt¬ 
ing for it all the afternoon, so her mother tells me.” 

“Ay,” said the mother. “It strayed away, and it is not with the 
flock tonight. They are all safe in the corral but that little one.” 

The child began to softly weep at her words. 

“She is afraid that el tigre, the ring-tailed jaguar, will catch it,” 
said the father. 

The little girl sobbed louder. 

“Hush! Hush!” crooned her mother. “It cannot be helped.” 

The wind roared around the hut. The father and mother and the 
little girl wrapped their serapes around them, and curled down to 
sleep upon a palm-woven mat. Marcos unrolled his own little mat 
and spread it in a corner. He folded his serape closely around him, 
too, and nestled down. The fringe tickled his lips and he turned it 
inside. 



34 





He folded his serape closely around him. 



































Now they were all asleep but Marcos. He could hear the rise and 
fall of their breathing—even the breathing of the little girl. The wind 
howled and howled outside, but it was warm inside the hut. It was 
warm and snug inside, and yet . . . Outside, somewhere, a little kid 
was alone. Caught in the rocks, perhaps. She would be bleating softly 
somewhere. And the black and yellow tigre would hear that bleat¬ 
ing. 

Silently Marcos arose. Silently he folded the serape closer around 
him. He tiptoed across the earth floor of the hut. He pushed open 
the door. Darkness and many stars. He remembered what the old 
man had told him: 

“There are too many people in the city and not enough stars.” 

He crept down to the gate, unlatched it, and stole out into the 
night. He listened. The dogs were hunting, he guessed. Perhaps 
they were far away. Surely one dog was lying in the corral with the 
sheep, in back of the hut somewhere. 

He walked farther and farther, feeling his way with his bare toes. 
He listened. He heard nothing but the sighing of the wind. He walked 
a little farther, his eyes growing more and more used to the dark. Now 
he could see where he was stepping. He listened. This time he heard 
a faint bleating. Ah! The little kid. 

He ran now. He ran to a loose cluster of gray rocks looming up in 
the starlight like crouched Indians wrapped in their serapes. He 
lightly ran up one rock. He glanced quickly about him. In a little 
hollow underneath a rock shelf he spied a trembling blob of white. 

The little kid had fallen into that twisty cave, and could not find 
her way out. She had been bleating all the afternoon, thought the boy, 
but her bleating was muffled under the rocks. But Marcos had the 
ears of a tigre itself. 

He slid down, gathered the trembling little creature in his arms, 
wrapped it in his warm serape, and carried it to the hut. How fine 
and silky its hair felt. As soft as corn silk, as soft as pine needles. He 
lifted it tenderly over the corral to the flock below. It ran to its mother. 

Then Marcos stole to the door of the hut, slipped in, lay down on 
his mat and wrapped his serape closely around him. He slept. 

And in the morning the little girl found the kid snug and safe in 
the corral with all the others. 


36 



The Yellow Bowl and the Apple Sauce 

Marcos left the charcoal hut early in the morning. His jacket- 
blouse was stuffed with a few bananas, and a chunk of mutton and 
some tortillas which the wife of the charcoal burner had given to 
him. His net was still two-thirds full of his green mountain apples. 
He felt very rich. 

A good breakfast inside of him, a good supper for the night, and 
apples to trade. What could be better? 

He was traveling between rolling hills now, soft hills furred in 
green, and the path was gentle. Up a little way, down a little way, 
but always easy and always going down more than up. 

Many Indians flocked into the trail from tiny villages hidden among 
the hills. They were not serranos. They were lowland Indians. The men 
wore wide-brimmed hats of woven palm, and their white cotton 
jackets and trousers were clean. The women were daintily dressed in 
white blouses with tiny puffed sleeves, bright skirts with flounces, and 
blue rebozos or scarves over their heads. 


37 










Many of the Indians were trotting along with quick, short steps; 
many were riding their fuzzy burros; many were jouncing along in 
ox carts. Wider and wider grew the trail. 


It seemed friendly and pleasant to Marcos to have so many Indians 
near him, and yet the boy felt timid, also. Too many people and not 
enough stars. Well, there were not too many people yet. There were 
just enough to be interesting. He liked to watch them. 

Only once did he pass any serranos. They were coming home from 
the market — a man and his wife and their tiny baby. Dusty and 
ragged they looked beside these cheerfully dressed Indians near the 
great city — though some of these same lowland Zapotecs had been 
serranos once. Marcos had never seen these very serranos before, but 
he had seen many just like them at home. 

As the man trudged past him, Marcos glanced at him out of the 
corner of his dark eyes. His black, pointed felt hat was pulled ’way 
down over his ears, and his black hair swirled beneath it. A stubby 
beard fluffed out from his chin. Under his hat his brown eyes darted 
hither and thither like those of a tigre’s at bay, and his skin was 
darker than most of the other Indians who passed him. One of his 
trouser legs was rolled up and one was flapping, and inside the rolled- 
up one was a leg the color of brown rocks and almost as hard. 

A little thrill crept up Marcos’ spine as he saw the strong muscles 
of this serrano who belonged to his people and his mountains. 


38 








Marcos had never seen these very serranos before. 
































A woman trudged behind the man. She did not wear the dainty 
dress of the Indians in this pleasant valley. Indeed no! Her hat was 
half a golden gourd. Her coarse white blouse had long full sleeves, and 
a close-fitting neck, and it was gray with age and dust. A long slit in 
the shoulder of her blouse showed the brown skin underneath. 

Around her hips was wrapped a heavy woolen skirt that seemed far 
too warm for such a sunny day, and hanging from her back was a 
thick gray serape in the shape of a little hammock. In this hammock 
snuggled the tiny baby, just the top of its fuzzy black hair showing. 

“They are going back to the stars,” thought Marcos a little wist¬ 
fully, as he turned and stared at them. He felt like joining them and 
going home. 

Then a thought swept over him. “I am going home next year, 
or in two or three years just before the first rain of the rainy season. 
I shall drive a pair of oxen before me. My father will be watching 
for me on the brow of the hill, and my mother will set the mutton 
stew a-boiling.” 

He walked stolidly on through this gracious valley, across a bridge 
of stone which Spaniards had built a long time ago, and up a green 
hill. And then a little village popped into view. 

Marcos stood still and stared. He had never seen a village just 
like this one before. The houses, thatched with red tiles, were built 
of adobe all the way through, and the adobe was painted! One house 
was painted the blue of the river under the swinging bridge. One was 
painted the yellow of the sun. One was painted the green of new 
onion blades. 

Marcos hurried down the trail into the wider street of the village. 
This street ran in front of a fence of tall organ cactus that hemmed 
in the little colored houses. A very nice fence it was. The gate was 
open, and on a knoll nearest the gate stood a little yellow house. 

The boy stepped up to the gate and peered at the yellow house, 
the red-tiled roof, and jars of gay geraniums in nooks and corners. 
He stared so long that some one from the house called to him: 

“Pase! Come in!” 

Marcos felt ashamed and darted away. 

“ Pase!” The pleasant voice spoke in Spanish. 

Marcos knew many Spanish words because a cousin of his father’s 


40 


lived part of the year in the great city, and always returned home 
when the ground was ready for plowing and seeding. Indeed, this 
cousin had forgotten almost all of his Zapotec Indian words, and 
spoke in Spanish most of the time. 

Marcos glanced up again at the little yellow house from which the 
voice had floated. Along a sunny side of the wall ran a roofed-over 
c orredor or veranda, and sitting under the roof was an old man. He 
was smiling at Marcos. 

“Pase!” he called again. 

Marcos bravely stepped inside the gate and ran up a little rise to 
the old man’s hut. He leaned against the wooden post of the c orredor. 

“Adios!” said the man, smiling. 

“Adios!” replied Marcos shyly. 

“You see what I am making?” asked the old man proudly. 

The boy nodded. The old Indian was sitting on the earth in the 
midst of small bowls of black clay. Bowls and more bowls were 
scattered on each side of him, waiting for the sun to dry them enough 
for the firing. While the boy was watching, the old man picked up a 
wad of black clay from a thick mass near his hand. He set the clay 
on flat stone, took up another stone, and pounded the clay until it was 
as flat and round as a tortilla. 

Marcos watched him very carefully. Never had he seen clay bowls 
made this way. His mother always rolled the clay into coils between 
the palms of her hands, and built up her bowls and ollas coil by coil. 
But this old man was making his dish all in one piece! 

“Now watch!” said the bowl-maker. He lightly scooped up the flat, 
round piece of clay and slapped it over a bowl which he had set upside 
down on the earth. He shaped the clay carefully around the bowl. 
Then he picked up a sharp thread of maguey—the wild century plant 
that sprinkled the hillsides everywhere, and he sliced off the rough edge 
of the clay just as if he were trimming pie crust. Now it was the size 
and shape of the other bowl, and he set it on the sunny earth to dry. 

Marcos grinned. Well! That was a quick way of making bowls. 
He would tell his mother about it some day. He picked up a piece of 
clay near him and pressed it between his fingers. It was a rubbery 
clay and it could do queer tricks. 

The old man pounded another piece of the curious clay, slapped it 


41 



over the bowl, and began trimming off the edge with the sharp thread. 
Ha! The thread snapped in two! He could not finish trimming the 
bowl! 


“This thread has snapped in two!” muttered the old man, half to 
himself, “and I have no other here.” 

“I will get you some more,” said Marcos. He had seen the grace¬ 
ful blue magueys, with their crinkling leaves, growing on a hillside 
just behind the village. He ran out of the gate, flew around the cactus 
fence, and darted up a rocky slope. A gray-blue maguey plant grew 
from a cluster of rocks in front of him. 

Marcos drew from his belt a pocket knife which his father’s cousin 
had given to him, cut off one of the leaves, and scraped off the thick 
bluish skin. Underneath this skin were long, creamy threads of fibre. 
He ran down to the little yellow house again, pulled out of the leaf 
some strong, stout threads, and handed them to the old man. 

“Good!” said the bowl-maker. “You are just in time.” The edge of 
the new bowl was sagging a little. He clipped off the rest, and set the 
bowl on the earth to dry. 

Marcos sat down in the corredor and pulled and twisted a thread 
of fibre which he held in his hand. 

Good, that fibre. It was strong. It was light. Well he knew that 
fibre. It could make nets. It had made his own. It could make ropes. 
It could cut off the ragged edges of clay bowls. There was magic in 
that thread. There was magic in all thread. Maguey thread, corn-silk 
thread, goat’s hair thread, cotton thread. 


42 













































Marcos pulled and twisted a thread of fibre 














































The old man was watching him curiously. 

“You have pointed fingers,” he said. “They are even more pointed 
than mine.” He held out his hand and showed Marcos his fingers. 
“And I am proud of my fingers.” 

Marcos shyly hid his fingers in the blouse of his jacket. The bowl- 
maker glanced at the jacket, then, 

“What do you carry in your jacket?” he asked. “And what is 
that in your net?” 

“Green apples from the mountains in my net,” said Marcos, “and 
tortillas and mutton and bananas in my jacket.” 

“Stay the night with me,” said the old man. “I will give you shel¬ 
ter if I may cook some of your apples for apple sauce. My wife has 
gone to the faraway market in Tlacolula to sell my bowls, and she 
will spend the night with her cousin. I shall be alone if you do not 
stay. And I have no centavos for food until she returns.” 

“I will stay,” said Marcos, glad that he would not have to curl 
outside the cactus fence for the night. Already the grape-colored 
shadows of late afternoon were creeping across the dusty road. The 
old man rose and led the way into the kitchen of the little adobe 
house. 

He built a fire of charcoal in the brick stove in the corner, chopped 
up the apples, and poured them into a clay cooking bowl. Then he 
sprinkled water and rough, grayish sugar upon them. 

Soon the apple sauce was purring, and Marcos was dividing the 
chunk of mutton, the tortillas, and bananas with the old bowl-maker. 

As the old man handed Marcos a bowl for the apple sauce he said: 

“Keep it. You have done me more than one good turn this day. 
You fetched me my thread, you divided your supper, and,” he 
chuckled, “you are keeping me from being lonely.” 

Marcos looked long at the bowl. It had been fired, so it was strong 
and good. Creamy yellow glaze covered it, and circles of red and 
green decorated it. The bowl was beautiful. 

“Thanks,” he said simply, as the old man filled it with sauce from 
the apples of the boy’s own mountain. 

“And thanks for the apple sauce,” said the old bowl-maker. 


44 



VII 

The Soup Woman and the Centavos 

Early in the morning Marcos was on the road again, his little 
yellow bowl packed between straw on the top of his apple-net. The 
road widened now into a dusty highway on which Indians were trav¬ 
eling to some market place beyond. 

The women carried baskets of flowers and fruit on their heads. 
The men carried mats of cocoanut fibre, strings of wooden bird cages 
and trays of buns. Ox carts creaked slowly by, and little burros pat¬ 
tered along on their dainty feet. 

Village after village Marcos passed, but no voice called to him as 
he peered through the gate, and no one asked him what he carried in 
his net. 

He was too shy to shout, “Apples! Apples!” as the other ven¬ 
dors shouted their wares. He just hoped that someone would see the 
shining green skins gleaming through holes in the mesh. 


45 







He had been traveling most of the morning when he suddenly 
stopped and stared at the road beneath him. It was different. It was 
no longer dusty. It was paved in stones — cobble stones like those 
in the bed of the river under the swinging bridge. Round stones. 
Polished stones. And before him rose something dreamlike. Was this 
the great city? 

He ran up a little knoll by the side of the cobbled highway and 
looked down. He gasped with surprise. He ran up a higher knoll and 
looked down again, and then he ran to a higher knoll still. He sat on 
this highest knoll with his chin cupped in his hands. He stared. 

No, this was not the great city, because his father had told him 
carefully all about that. This was a very big village, bigger than all 
the others. It was so big that he would have to go straight through 
instead of going around it. 

He saw a wide river of red-tiled roofs glistening with sun-gold 
in the noontime. Many of the roofs were furred with green mosses. 
He saw a creamy church with two bell towers, and a scarlet dome like 
a red apple set between them. 

But the strangest thing Marcos saw in this village was the variety 
of colors of the painted adobe houses. He did not know there were 
so many colors in the world. These colors ran through all shades of 


46 



















He sat on this highest knoll. 


















the rainbow. A curious thing about them was that many of the 
houses had colors and colors painted over each other, like the many 
folds of an onion skin. 

Should Marcos peel off the blue paint he would find pink. If he 
peeled off the pink paint he would find yellow. If he peeled off the 
yellow paint he would find green. Marcos could see patches of these 
colors underneath each other. He guessed that the houses had been 
painted over and over again; and each time they were painted, they 
were done a different color. 

Marcos liked those mixed colors very much. They were like 
weaving of the finest kind. Threads of one color running crosswise 
under threads of another color, so that the under shade showed 
through. 

He stared and stared at this village. He saw little twisting streets. 
Indian women were pacing up and down them, bearing tall water 
jars on their heads. Indian men were trudging along them, carrying 
heavy burdens. One old Indian was patching cobbles in the street. 

Marcos saw a drove of burros with fluffy cornstalks bristling 
from their sides, and a boy running up the curving steps of a bell 
tower. 

All these things he saw because he had the far sight of a boy who 
had lived always in the mountains, and who had gazed from peak to 
peak since babyhood. He had the eyes of a wild creature, a wild 
mountain hawk. 

From the bell tower clanged the church bells, swung by the hand 
of the boy who had climbed the steps; and cries of vendors floated up 
from the streets. 

“Surely I can trade my apples in this village,” said Marcos to him¬ 
self, running down the three knolls and joining the crowd in the high¬ 
way again. His bare toes felt the cobbled street for the first time, 
though often they had curled around stones on his mountains at 
home. 

He trudged down a hill with flocks of vendors, and found him¬ 
self in a great, tree-fringed square. Ah! This was the park! Often he 
had heard his father say that every big village had a park in the mid¬ 
dle of it. He sat down on the very edge of a carved bench to rest a 
little while. 

He didn’t know whether he was supposed to sit there or not, 


48 


though other people were sitting on the benches. A fine Mexican 
gentleman in strange city clothes of gray was reading a newspaper 
on one bench. A little Indian woman with a blue rebozo over her 
head and shoulders, and a tiny baby asleep in its folds, rested on an¬ 
other bench. An old Indian man wrapped up in a scarlet set ape was 
snoozing on another bench. The air was a sleepy air. 

In the center of the park rose a bandstand with a fancy railing. 
Little paths ran around it and wandered out in all directions. Dark 
trees like mountain trees were planted among the paths, but they 
didn’t smell like mountain trees. They didn’t smell like pines or any 
other trees that Marcos knew. 

Boys and girls darted through the park carrying bangles and other 
trinkets to sell, and a little bootblack with tiny box and stool ran to 
the fine gentleman. Marcos was very much surprised to see the gen¬ 
tleman peer over the rim of his newspaper and nod to the bootblack 
to go ahead. He set one foot on the little stool, and the bootblack 
opened his box and drew out a brush. It was easy to get that job! 

Marcos stole away from his bench and left the park by one of its 
curving little paths. He stepped into a narrow, cobbled street and 
let it take him where it would. It ran down a hill a little way be¬ 
tween houses of bright colors. 

He walked slowly now, staring at the houses on either side of him. 
Some were low and some were high, and they clung to each other 
like timid children. All had balconies gay with jars of geraniums 
and green parrots in cages. A Mexican woman in a frilly pink dress 
was rocking in a cane chair on one balcony. 

“Boy! Boy!” she called, as Marcos wandered down the street. He 
glanced up and saw her peering down at him, over the railing. 
“What have you in your net?” 

“Apples,” replied Marcos, suddenly hanging his head and scratch¬ 
ing a cobble with his bare toe. 

“How much?” 

Marcos glanced over his shoulder at his net. It was only a third 
full. 

“Twenty centavos,” he replied. 

The woman bristled. “Too much. Ten centavos” 

“Twenty centavos,” repeated Marcos, walking along slowly. 


49 



“No, no. Fifteen centavos .” 

“Twenty!” 

“Ten!” 

“Twenty!” And Marcos ambled down the street. 

“Come back!” cried the woman. “I will give you fifteen!” 

Marcos turned back. This was what he was waiting for. When 
he reached the doorway, his customer was already standing in it. 
Had she flown down from the balcony, thought Marcos? She was 
holding out a deep, brown-glazed bowl. Marcos carefully plucked 
his own little yellow bowl out of his net, and poured the apples into 
her bowl. They rattled like river water over stones. Now he had 
nothing left to trade. But he had fifteen centavos! 

He tied the coppers in a corner of his jacket and trudged up the 
street again. He was hungry. He had eaten nothing for breakfast 
because the old bowl-maker’s cupboard was empty. 

He walked through the park and stepped into a street where many 


50 




























Twenty centavos,” repeated Marcos. 





































people were flocking. Soon he found himself at the archway of a 
great, roofed-over market. He peered inside. It was thronged with 
Indians swaying like corn leaves in the wind. Their voices rustled 
like blowing corn leaves, too. 

These Indians were dressed like the lowland Zapotecs he had seen 
on the trail the day before, and the children were dressed just like 
their parents. 

Here and there were Mexican ladies among the Indians, their 
smooth, black, uncovered hair parted neatly, their silk dresses a-swish, 
and the heels of their shiny slippers high. Neat little bare-footed In¬ 
dian maids or sturdy mozos or menservants trailed after them, carry¬ 
ing market baskets in the crooks of their arms. 

The sharp tang of meat and fresh vegetables and fruits floated to 
the quivering nose of Marcos, and he stepped into the busy market. 

He passed the meat stall. It was sizzling with flies, though he 
didn’t mind that. But how could he use raw meat without his mother 
to cook it? 

He passed the vegetable stall. Fragrant as a wild flower garden 
in spring, this vegetable stall. Pearly onions and rosy beets and curly 
squashes. But why should he buy these without his mother to cook 
them? 

He passed the buns — Ah! He started to untie the knot in his 
jacket. He could buy one of these buns. But just then he smelled a 
whole feast! At the very back of the market place was a restaurant 
set up for serving vendors and buyers who had come from far places 
like himself. 

Three women were standing behind a long counter. They were 
cooking and serving and chatting, too. Many Indians were sitting on 
a low bench before the counter, eating what these three had cooked. 

Marcos perched himself silently on one end of the bench and 
pointed to a steaming bowl of soup. 

One of the three women dished out a foaming bowl of soup and 
handed it to Marcos. The second woman handed him two tortillas, 
and the third woman a cup of coffee. 

Marcos forgot the market and the great city and everything else. 
He whisked the soup into his mouth with the heavy spoon, sipped 
the coffee loudly, and set his teeth into a good thick tortilla. 


52 


He hadn t tasted such a fine meal since he left his mother’s hut 
in the mountains. He held out his bowl for more soup, and then he 
remembered and drew it back again. This soup woman wasn’t his 
mother. This soup woman and the others would want pay. Already 
the soup woman’s hand was stretched out to his. She seemed to be 
the head woman. 

“How much?” asked Marcos, and how he wished that he had 
asked, “How much?” first. His heart shook. 

“Fifteen centavos!” said the woman sharply. 

Marcos stared. Fifteen centavos for a bowl of soup and two tor¬ 
tillas and a cup of coffee! 

“Ten!” said he stubbornly. 

“Fifteen!” 

“Ten!” 

“It’s ten if you stand up and eat, but fifteen if you sit down,” 
scolded the soup woman. 

Marcos’ jaw dropped. What difference did that make? Why, he 
could eat lying down on his back if he had to! 

Already the soup woman was chatting with her two companions, 
as though it didn’t matter. But she still held out her hand. 

“Come, be quick!” she snapped. “Fifteen!” 

Marcos untied the corner of his jacket and handed the woman the 
fifteen centavos he had just earned. He rose from the bench and 
slipped away in the crowd. He had nothing now. No centavos, and 
no apples to trade. 

And then he smiled a merry little smile to himself. “But I’ve got 
a good dinner inside of me, anyway!” he chuckled. “And my little 










The Lady in Lilac 


It was a lonely little figure that trudged to the park and sat on 
the edge of the same bench again. It was the time of the siesta — 
the rest time in the warm part of the day. Shutters of stores were 
pulled down, wooden blinds of windows were drawn close, and 
everybody was resting somewhere. 


Those who had no cool homes in which to rest were sitting idly 
on the park benches, or curled in doorways, or nestling in the shade 
of the church wall. Some of them were even propped up, half dozing, 
against the great carved doors of the church. 



54 


















Marcos looked around him with wondering eyes. 












































Marcos looked about him with wondering eyes. If he were home, 
now, he would be resting under a tree at the edge of the cornfield. 
He would be sprawling on the soft brown earth, not sitting up 
straight on a park bench. The sun would be pouring into his face, 
and baking his skin a darker brown than ever. 

With half shut eyes he watched the scene. One old Indian, on his 
way to rest somewhere, was kneeling at the fountain, cupping his 
hands for a drink of water. A click came from across the street, and 
a slender arm reached out of the window of a pink house and drew 
the shutters. A brisk little Indian woman trotted home from a morn¬ 
ing at the washing tank, a basket of crinkled clothes, sun-dried on 
the bushes, on her head. 

Marcos yawned — a deep wide yawn. He bent his head over his 
chest. He slept. 

Clangity-clang! Clangity-clang! The church bells wakened him 
with a start. He shook himself and glanced up. The great copper 
bell in one of the bell towers was waking up from its nap, too. An 
Indian boy was leaping on the rope, like el tigre upon its prey. 

The lively, swinging bell, that looked like a huge, upside-down 
poppy, made little shivers run up and down Marcos’ spine. He would 
rather hear the thunder growl in the mountains, or the waterfall 
dance down the rock slides, than this jangling thing. He hopped up 
from his bench and ran down a little side street. 

And then he stopped short and laughed. 

“If I am going to live in the great city beyond,’’ he said to himself, 
“I shall have to listen to many strange noises that I have never heard 
before. Perhaps they will not seem strange to me after a little time.” 

While he was standing in the middle of the cobbled street laughing 
to himself, a voice called out from a doorway: 

“Boy! Boy!” 

Where had he heard that voice? Ah! It was a voice in the little 
village back there, and it had floated down from a balcony. But this 
was a kinder voice. It did not have the sharp edge of the other. 
Marcos shook himself wider awake. 

“Boy! Boy! Come here!” 

Marcos stepped toward the archway of a pretty, lilac-colored 
house. In the archway stood a slender, dark-haired woman as pretty 


56 


as the house. She wore a lilac-colored silk dress and dainty earrings 
swung from her ears. 

“Do you want to water my garden this afternoon?” she asked. “I 
will give you ten centavos. My other boy has gone to a birthday 
feast.” 

Marcos stared at her. Water her garden? What did she mean? In 
the mountains at home the rain watered the cornfield. Only the rain. 
Could he ask the rain to come before it was time? And why should 
there be need of watering a garden in the rainy season? 

The Mexican woman guessed his thoughts and she smiled. 

“Come with me,” she said. She led him through the shadowy arch 
into a flowery patio beyond, through a gate in the wall, and into a 
terraced vegetable garden. 

“For three days the thunder shower has not fallen in our village,” 
said she, “and I have young plants set out. They need watering.” 

She led Marcos down to the first terrace. Tiny radish plants stood 
in one row. Tiny crisp lettuce plants in another row. Tiny chard 
plants in another row. They looked wet enough to Marcos, but they 
didn’t look wet enough to her. She wrinkled her brow and glanced at 
the sky.” 

“And I do not see a cloud,” she said. 

Marcos didn’t see a cloud, either, but he tasted a warm taste in 
the air that meant rain. But it wouldn’t be polite to tell her so. 

“Water these three rows,” said the woman in lilac. “Then go 
down to the second terrace and water the young plants down there 
— only the young plants, understand. Then go down to the third ter¬ 
race and water the young plants down there.” 

She turned and walked lightly toward the gate in the patio wall, 
but Marcos didn’t move. Once she glanced back. 

“Hurry!” she called, as she saw him standing frozen there. Then 
her eyes crinkled into a smile. She understood now. 

“The water is in a well over there,” she said, pointing, “and a 
water olla is lying on the ground beside the well. Sprinkle the water 
with your hands. Do not pour it upon the plants.” 

Marcos darted over to the well and peered into it. It was a deep 
well. Water glistened at the bottom of it. He picked up the black 


57 



water olla. His eyes grew wide. It was an oil a from his own village! 
It was an olla of his mother’s own making! Perhaps his father had 
sold this olla to this very woman in the market of the great city be¬ 
yond. 

He let the olla down into the well with the long rope which was 
tied around its neck. He watched the rope as it slid down. It was a 
fine piece of rope woven from the same kind of maguey thread with 
which the old bowl-maker had trimmed his bowl. Perhaps his own 
father had made that rope! How strong such little threads could be 
when they were woven together. Even the swinging bridge had been 
woven of threads! 

Marcos tugged at the rope now. The olla was heavy with water. 
Good and tough that rope! It didn’t break with its burden. He 
pulled up the olla, looped up the coils of rope again, rested the olla 
on his hip, and ran between the rows. He sprinkled the young rad¬ 
ishes with water, the young lettuce, the young chard. 

Then he ran down the steps to the next terrace and sprinkled the 
young plants down there. Funny! What little rows! Why didn’t the 
woman plant corn? Better the cornfields and the oxen and the plow. 


58 









He let the olla down into the well. 





































And then he stood still and chuckled as he thought of oxen climb¬ 
ing up and down those tiny terraces. 

“Keep on watering! Keep on watering!” called a voice from a 
balcony above, but there was a gay laugh in the voice. 

Ah! He had forgotten. It was not his father’s cornfield he was 
watering. He was earning his pay now. He would have to keep 
busy. 

Again and again he ran to the well, let down the olla, pulled it 
up, sprinkled the young plants. Then he felt a warm splash on his 
cheek. How could the water from the olla hop up and sprinkle 
his cheeks? He heard a growl in the mountains — his mountains. 
Then he saw a flicker of bright light. 

“You have watered enough,” called a voice. “It is going to rain.” 

Marcos glanced up at the balcony just in time to see a lilac skirt 
whisk into a shadowy room up there. 

“She is coming now!” thought Marcos. “She will pay me nothing 
because it is going to rain and my work has been wasted. Or may¬ 
be she will pay me only half. That would be fair. I have not watered 
all her plants.” 

Yet he was tired through and through. The constant hurry 
without rest, the strain of lifting the heavy olla out of the well so 
many times, the chasing from terrace to terrace — these things had 
tired him after the long tramp of the morning. 

The woman in lilac stood in the gateway of the patio wall and 
called him to come. He ran once more to the well, dropped the olla 
gently where he had found it, and stepped quickly towards her. She 
held a piece of silver and some copper centavos in her hand. 

“Ten centavos I promised you,” said she, “and here they are.” 

Marcos stared. She was going to give it all to him, then? He held 
out his palm for the five-cent piece and five centavos. She let them 
fall into it. He tied them in a corner of his jacket. 

“Thanks,” he said, a note of wonder in his voice. 

“For nothing,” she replied. And then she added kindly: “You 
did well. I watched you. If I had no boy to water my garden 
I would take you.” But she didn’t say out loud that he had a plea¬ 
sant way with him, and that her boy always wore a scowl. “Where 
are you going?” 


“To the great city.” 

“What are you going to do there?” 

“Find work.” 

“What kind of work?” 

“What I, what I—” 

“I know — what you can get,” she helped him. And then she put 
her hand on his shoulder, because she liked this boy, and she said: 

“Take what you can get. That is right. But keep your eyes open 
always for something better. Better! Better!” She smiled. 

Marcos’ tongue unhooked itself now, and he told her how he 
wanted to buy a pair of oxen and drive them home to his father in 
a year or more. 

“It will take much more than one year to earn them,” said she. 
“It will take two years, three years maybe, for they cost much 
money. But put your earned coins in a jar, or slip them under a loose 
tile, or hide them in a chink of the wall. Save them. And the day 
will come when you can drive your oxen home. And now, Adios, 
and good luck!” 

“Adios,” said Marcos with a smile. He walked through the patio, 
through the shadowy archway, into the cobbled street. The rain 
drops were gathering. He shook out his rain cape and threw it over 
his shoulders. 

“That woman is a good woman,” he thought to himself. “She is 
better than the soup woman at the restaurant. That soup woman 
wanted five more centavos because I sat down instead of standing 
up, and this lady gave me five more centavos than I have earned. 
All that money wasted because the thunder shower came!” 

He trudged up the street in the dancing rain, hardly knowing 
where he was going. But soon he found himself on a wide muddy 
highway leading out of the village into the great city beyond. 

As he trotted through the spatter of raindrops, he thought: 

“There are too many people and not enough stars, but some of 
the people are good and some of the people are not so good. I will 
be careful how I choose my master.” 


61 


IX 

The Old Convent 

As Marcos plodded along the highway to the great city of Oax¬ 
aca, the rain drove into his face and trickled down the palm rib¬ 
bons of his rain cape. Shadows of dusk were weaving among the 
rain drops. But the thunder was growing fainter and fainter, and 
the lightning flashes were few. 

Flocks of Indians crowded beside him, bound to the market in 
the great city. They were going to spend the night in the city, 
thought Marcos, so they could be at the market in the earliest dawn. 

Where would they sleep? Would they huddle against the closed 
shutters of the market place? Would they crawl into doorways? Some 
of them would have friends in the city, but not Marcos. Where 
would he sleep? 


62 







The rain trickled down the palm ribbons of his rain cape. 
































































All these things he thought as he pressed on to the great city. 
He followed the others. In the dusk he bumped against crates of 
live chickens, bags of corn, bags of wool, bags of grain. He jounced 
into turkeys and squealing pigs clutched under arms, and he scraped 
against the flanks of burros and oxen. The rain drops fell no longer. 
Dusk, dusk, and more dusk, and then — 

He saw the lights of the great city! He saw yellow lights from 
window slits in walls that looked like strange, dark mountains. He 
saw flickering torches in the street where a few vendors were selling 
their wares under roofs. He smelled the smell of many people. 

“There are too many people and not enough stars,” he mut¬ 
tered to himself. He looked up wildly. He could not see the stars! 
Instead he saw towering, shadowy walls leaning toward him. He 
trembled. What if there should be an earthquake! He wished he 
were home in his little thatched hut. He wanted to be close to the 
warm earth; he wanted plenty of earth all around him. There was 
no earth here! Not a square foot of it! Cobbles, cold cobbles under 
his bare feet! 

He swayed along with the crowd. Like a rushing river they all 
swept around the corner, plunged down a twisting street of cob¬ 
bles, and one by one were swallowed up in the darkness. 

Marcos followed them. He passed the closed shutters of a great 
market. Through the slits of the shutters he smelled the warm odors 
of the busy market day that had just passed. He smelled the sweat 
of many people, the faint perfume of flowers, the ripe skins of ba¬ 
nanas, and musty leather of sandals and thongs. 

He crossed the street with the rest of the crowd, and was shoved 
along a wide tiled runway leading up to a great archway. And in¬ 
side the archway this is what he saw. 

He saw a vast courtyard in the middle of great walls hung on 
all four sides with two balconies, one above the other. In the court¬ 
yard was a crush of Indians and oxens and ox carts and burros. By 
the light of candles and torches and lanterns the men were throw¬ 
ing down hay for their animals, unhitching them from carts, or 
lifting off their burdens. 

Women were feeding their pigs or goats or chickens that they 
had brought to sell at the market, and sleepy little children were 
crawling into beds of hay. Up an old stone staircase leading from 



He followed the others. 


W* 

























the courtyard, Indian families were wearily trudging to the floors 
above, their bundles on their backs. 

Marcos stood gaping in the midst of all this whirl and flutter. 
This was a very nice place to spend the night, he thought. Why had his 
father never told him of this place before? Friendly animals flocking 
all around him, to squeal or bray or crow, whatever was their nature. 
He looked up into the sky above the great courtyard. He could see 
a few stars. Only a few, though, and very faint. Not like the glitter¬ 
ing stars at home. 

He sat down in a dusky corner and listened to the chatting around 
him. Everybody was speaking in Spanish. Only now and then he 
heard an Indian word. If he lived in the city he would have to speak 
Spanish, too. But he would never forget his Indian language as did 
his father’s cousin. 

Chatter, chatter, chatter! Mostly the men were chattering. The 
women and children were too tired to talk. 

“This place is an ex-convento” said one. Marcos pricked up his 
ears. An ex-convento! He knew what that was. That was an old- 
time convent. His father had told him about these old convents in the 
great city, where nuns used to teach Indian children. 

“Yes,” said the other. “It is very old. It has not been used for a 
convent for many years.” 

“I am going to sleep down here by my burros,” said the first man, 
gathering up a pile of hay, and carrying it to his little animals near by. 

“And I am going to the floor above,” said the other. And they 
parted for the night. 

Marcos rose softly to his feet. “I am going to sleep above, too,” 
he whispered to himself. “Nearer the stars.” 

He passed through the crowd in the courtyard and mounted the 
wide stone steps. Flares lighted the way. In the middle of each step 
was a hollow place where many footsteps had worn down the stone 
in years past. 

Up and up and up. He was alone on the stairs now. He was alone 
on the first roofed balcony that ran around the four walls of the ex- 
convento. He peered into tiny rooms that opened off this balcony. 
In many of the rooms whole families were unrolling their palm sleep¬ 
ing mats, and curling upon them, wrapped in their warm serapes. 


66 


He tiptoed up another wide staircase. This led him to another 
balcony without a roof, and to other rooms opening from it. He felt 
more at home here. He was nearer the stars. He peeked into the little 
rooms. They were empty. 

And then he chose a room for himself. “This is my room,” he said 
softly. “It is my little mountain cave.” He stepped into a tiny, 
plastered cell. This was his room. Just dimly he could see the shadowy, 
white walls. One tiny, round, barred window pierced one wall. He 
stood on tiptoe and peered through it. He found one star! 

He unrolled his sleeping mat and spread it in a corner. He rolled 
up his sweetly scented rain cape for a pillow. He lay down. 

A clatter and chatter awoke him. It was early morning. Rays of 
sun peeked through the little round window. He leaped to his feet, 
ran out on the balcony and peered over the wooden railing. 

Burros were braying in the courtyard, pigs were squealing, 
Indians were bustling around their animals, watering and feeding 
them. Indians were setting their wares on their heads and trotting 
off to market. Lowland Zapotec Indians everywhere. Scurrying, flur¬ 
rying. 

Marcos ran back to his little cave, rolled up his mat with his rain 
cape, and slung them across his back. He threw his serape upon his 
shoulder. He peeked into his net. The yellow bowl in its wrapping 
of straw was safe. 

Then he ran out to the balcony again and stole down the icy-cold 
stone steps. On the balcony he met many Indian families tumbling 
out of their rooms like bees out of hives. They carried many wares 
for the market. 

Marcos stole down the last flight of stairs. On the last stone step 
a hand was laid on his shoulder. 

“Where did you sleep last night?” asked a rough voice. Marcos 
glanced up. A tall man with black whiskers was frowning down upon 
him. The boy tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but the long fingers 
clutched his coat sleeve. 

There was no use in telling this man that he slept close to the 
stars in a mountain cave, so he said simply: 

“I slept ’way up there,” and he pointed with one finger to the 
upper balcony. 


67 



“What for?” he asked the man with the black whiskers 













































































The man held out his hand, the palm upward. “Ten centavos,” he 
said. “You owe me ten centavos.” 

Ten centavos! Ten centavos for lying down and sleeping? Ten 
centavos? What for? 

“What for?” he asked this man with the black whiskers. 

“For renting one of my rooms, of course,” said the man gruffly, 
his eyes searching the passing crowd for any who had not paid. “I 
have to pay rent for this ex-convento, and you have to pay me. That’s 
fair, isn’t it? I’m not giving my rooms away, am I?” 

Marcos couldn’t quite understand. At home no stranger was ever 
left outside in the chill night when he could sleep in the little 
thatched house of Marcos’ parents. And a nice fat supper and break¬ 
fast he was given, besides. Marcos wondered. 

“Come, come, come!” growled the man, staring now at the tied-up 
corner of the boy’s jacket. “Give me ten centavos!” 

Marcos slowly untied the corner of his jacket. He handed the man 
the precious silver piece and the copper centavos which the woman 
in lilac had given to him for watering a garden that didn’t need water¬ 
ing. The man with the whiskers closed his fingers over the coins and 
walked away. 

Marcos stood staring after him for a long time. His ten centavos! 
His breakfast. And then he suddenly felt dizzy. He almost swayed 
as he stood there in the bustle of Indians, in the warm smell of animals, 
and the whiffs of breakfast which the Indians were eating. 

He was puzzled. He was hungry. He was lonesome — very, very 
lonesome. He wished he could hear his mother patting the good tor¬ 
tillas for breakfast. He wished she was folding one tortilla over a piece 
of mutton and handing it to him. He wished he could eat his own 
breakfast, too. 


But no, no! He had to pay ten centavos for lying down and going 
to sleep. He couldn’t quite understand. He couldn’t quite understand 
this great city — yet. 





The Great City 

Marcos stood in the twisting cobbled street outside the market 
place. He was peering through the great doorway from which the 
shutters had been lifted. He dared not to go into that buzzing place. 
Of a truth there were too many people and not enough stars. 

It was very much like the market in the village of the woman in 
lilac, only larger, much larger. Great stalls were piled high with 
golden mangoes, purple plums, and pineapples. They overflowed with 
frilly, green vegetables and fragrant flowers. 

High wide racks were hung with bright cotton scarves and belts 
and aprons. There were racks with ropes and leather sandals and 
saddle packs of cocoanut fibre; racks with ribs of beef and shoulders 
of lamb, and sausages. 


70 























Soon, tomorrow perhaps, Marcos felt he might venture into the 
market. But now, such a hollow feeling hid under his red cotton sash 
that he could think of nothing else. How could he earn his breakfast? 
How? No one in the market needed help. They were all busily doing 
everything for themselves. He would stroll about the big city and 
keep his eyes wide open every minute. Perhaps he could find another 
garden to water. 

He trudged past the busy market place and entered a little park. 
Ah! There was a little old Mexican gentleman snoozing on a bench. 
He was the only one in the park this busy, bustling morning. If 
Marcos had only a shoe-shining box and a stool now, he would run 
up to the old man, speak to him gently, and ask if he wanted his shoes 
shined. But he didn’t have a box and stool. 

Slowly Marcos wandered through the park, his eyes staring at 
everything. He stooped over the rim of a fountain. He cupped his 
hands and drank. The water was cool and sweet — almost as sweet 
as mountain water. He pretended that it was food, too. 

He walked through the trees to the end of the park. He stared at 
the great green walls of buildings that rose around it, walls that 
looked like the cliffs rising above the swinging bridge of vines. They 
seemed to be rocking. He stared at the carved iron balconies jutting 
out from them. He wouldn’t want to stand on one of those balconies. 
They didn’t look strong enough to hold him. Ah! He didn’t know 
how strong they were! He stared at the great carved doors flung back 
against the walls. 

So, looking this way and that, he presently found himself on a little 
cobbled street running down a hill. Marcos liked this street. It looked 
like the street of the woman in lilac. Maybe, good luck was hiding 
somewhere on this street. He strolled slowly down it, peering into 
archways. 

The low houses of this street were painted in many colors. Some 
were lilac, like the house of the woman in lilac. Some were creamy 
yellow. Some were the green of vines with the sun shining through 
them. None of them were as dark as pine needles. They were all light, 
light. Low balconies hung over his head and iron-barred windows 
pierced the walls. 

Archways ran straight through the houses, cutting them in two. 
Beyond the archways glimmered flowery patios. In the patios Marcos 
could see lemon trees and banana trees and bright blossoms which he 


71 



did not know. Children played by the fountains and hens scratched 
in the corners. 


A little woman in a white blouse and starched pink skirt threw a 
bucket of soapy water out of an archway. It splashed against Marcos’ 
shoulder. He looked up in surprise, but the little woman had whisked 
away. She had not even seen him. 

Parrots in wooden cages screeched at him as he passed, and two 
green parakeets played in a sunny spot on a doorstep. 

It was a nice street, a homely, cheerful, little street. But everyone 
in it was busy, going about his own affairs. All belonged there; they 
were at home. Only Marcos, the little boy from the mountains, did not 
belong there. No one paid any attention to him. 


72 




































Only Marcos did not belong there . 





























































It made him feel very homesick. It came over him with a hollow 
feeling, right down to his toes, that he was all alone in this city of 
busy happy people. There was no one here to whom he belonged, no 
one who would turn and say: “Why, there is Marcos! How is Marcos 
this morning?” 

So he left the little gay street, the busy women and the children 
and the chattering parrots, the bright houses and green vines. He 
turned his back on them all and set off once more towards the market 
place. 

How did one find work? What did one do when one was small and 
alone and wanted to find work, work that would help to buy oxen and 
a plow? How did one set about it, when one knew nobody at all in this 
big city? 

One asked. 

All day Marcos wandered up and down the streets. Whenever he 
saw a place where people were working, where it looked as if they 
might be glad of a little boy to help them, he stopped and asked. But 
for all his asking, there would be only a shake of the head. He helped 
one man to carry baskets of fruit and vegetables from a cart into his 
shop, and the man gave him a banana. But when all the baskets were 
carried, and the banana was eaten, then there was nothing more to do 
there. 

Some of the people listened to him before they shook their heads. 
Some were too busy even to listen. They told him to run along, and 
not to stand about there, getting in their way. One man said that 
Marcos had better go back to his own village. Perhaps he might find 
work there. 

By midday Marcos was tired and very hungry. The banana had 
helped, but it was only a banana. He felt very empty about his middle, 
and his feet ached from trudging to and fro over the hard stones. 

He took a drink from a fountain in the street, and then he sat down 
on the steps of a big church. It was cool here and shady. He watched 
the people going back and forth. 

So many people. Such a big city! And nowhere, in all these busy 
streets, was any work for a little boy who wanted to earn his food. 

But here at least he could be quiet. There was no one to jostle 
him, to push him out of the way. He laid his head on his arms, and 
presently he fell fast asleep. 



Marcos Finds a Master 


He woke with a great noise in his ears. Ding, dong—ding, dong! 
For a moment Marcos was very startled. Then he knew that it was 
the sound of the great bell in the tower above him, like the bell that 
had wakened him once before, in the village of the woman in lilac. But 
this time the bell did not frighten him. It seemed to be talking. 

“Marcos, Marcos,” it seemed to say. “Wake up, Marcos!” 

Now there were many more people in the street. Women in fine 
dresses, peasant women with shawls. Marcos drew back behind one of 
the big pillars and watched them going by. 

The shadows across the street had grown longer. They reached 
almost across to the opposite walls. It must be nearly sunset, Marcos 
thought. Sunset, and he had not yet found work to do, or even food 
to eat. 

He passed again by the big market. It was emptying, now. People 
were packing up their things, getting their carts ready to drive home. 
No work there. 


75 














































Through one street after another Marcos went. He would walk 
and walk, he thought, and then later when it was quite dark he 
would creep back to the church steps and there, in the shadow of the 
big pillars, he would curl up, very small so that no one would see 
him, and perhaps he could sleep there till morning. And tomorrow 
— who knew — tomorrow he would surely find work. 

There was only that empty ache, like a mouse gnawing under his 
belt, that began to trouble him more and more. If only he could be 
sitting down, right now, to a good hot meal in his mother’s house! 

Not even troubling which way he went, jostled by the hurrying 
people about him, lost and lonely among the clatter of so many 
strange feet, Marcos wandered on. And presently he turned a corner. 

There he was, back in the little cobbled street with the bright houses 
and the gardens. It looked friendly, as a place does that one has seen 
before. It was almost like coming home. 


76 















There he was, back in the little cobbled street. 


> 





















































































There were the arched doorways and the gardens behind them. 
And there was the same parrot he had seen that morning, drowsy 
now and sitting all bunched up on its perch. 

Slowly, almost on tiptoe, Marcos walked along. Suddenly he 
stopped short by the archway of a yellow house. He had heard a click- 
click, from a room somewhere behind the walls. The sound was 
smothered, as though it came from a cave like his little cave in the 
ex-convento, but Marcos knew that click well. No other ears but the 
ears of a wild mountain boy could have heard it. 

He peered into the archway. Home-made benches lined either side 
and gay potted geraniums bloomed on the benches. Soft worn tiles 
lay underfoot, leading on and on ... 

Marcos took one step inside the arch. He listened. The clicking 
sound grew a little nearer. He tiptoed through the arch and peered 
into the patio. Golden balls hung from an orange tree. Banana leaves 
rustled in a corner. Lemons hung from a lemon tree. 

But Marcos scarcely looked at the trees. For something else had 
caught his eye. On a cord stretched from lemon tree to orange tree 
hung threads. Wet threads—wet from the dyeing. Scarlet threads, 
golden threads, olive threads, purple threads! Threads as soft as corn 
silk, or the hair of the little kid at the charcoal burner’s. Strong as the 
vines of the swinging bridge! 

Marcos stepped across the patio and lifted a thread between his 
fingers. It was cotton thread from tree cotton, he knew that. And the 
dyes were from mountain plants. He knew that, too. 

Then he heard that clicking sound again. Click, click! He peered 
into a doorway. For just one little moment he could see nothing in the 
room beyond. It was dusky in there. Then he saw an old wooden loom 
in one corner, a weaver behind it; and another loom in another corner, 
a weaver behind it; and another loom and another weaver in another 
corner. And in the middle of the room, in a patch of late sunlight, he 
saw a spinning wheel with no one behind it. The stool was empty. 

As he stood there, peering into the room, one of the looms stopped 
clicking. A slender Indian with curling black whiskers slipped off a 
stool and came towards him. 

“What do you want, my son?” he asked in a friendly voice. 

Marcos started to move away, but the master of the weaving house 
touched his arm. 


78 


‘What do you want?” he asked again. “Are you looking for some¬ 
one?” 

What could Marcos say? He stood there tongue-tied. Just then the 
whiff of savory soup from a kitchen beyond reached his nose and he 
almost said: “I want supper.” But hungry as he was, the words of the 
old goatherd came back to him just in time. “Do not be a beggar.” 

“I want work,” said Marcos, and without knowing it his eyes fell 
on the empty stool before the spinning wheel. 

“Ah,” said the weaver, putting a pointed finger to his lips as 
though he were thinking. Marcos looked at that pointed finger. Then 
he looked at his own fingers. They were just as pointed as the 
weaver’s. 

“I might use a boy like you,” said the weaver at last. “He could run 
my errands, and fetch and carry for my workers. But he must not be 
afraid of work.” 

“I am not afraid of work,” said Marcos. 

“Can you spin?” asked the master. 

“I cannot spin—yet,” said Marcos, “but I can learn.” 

“Hm-hm-hm!” hummed the weaver. He stared at the empty stool 
a long moment. 

“My spinner has gone back to the mountains,” he said. “His 
brother was killed in a fall from a horse, and he had to take his place. 
He has no father. He was a serrano, too.” 

Marcos was silent for a while. Then he asked slowly: 

“How long would it take for a spinner to earn a pair of oxen and 
a plow, after he had learned to spin?” 

“Oh, maybe three years, once he had learned,” said the weaver 
thoughtfully. “But I would send him to school while he was spinning 
my threads, and every rainy season I would let him go back into the 
mountains, for a little while, to help with the plowing and sowing. And 
after three years, if he worked hard, I would teach him to be a weaver.” 

“I will learn!” cried Marcos in a clear voice, and the clicking of the 
other two looms suddenly stopped. “I will spin your threads for three 
years, and after three years I will drive my oxen home and then I will 
come back. For I would rather be a weaver than anything else in the 
world!” 


79 


And suddenly all the threads that Marcos loved — the corn silk 
thread, the tough maguey thread, the cotton thread and all the others 
— seemed to weave themselves into a fine gay blanket. Then the 
blanket swayed before his eyes and he fell back. 

The strong arm of the master caught him. 

“The boy is faint with hunger,” he cried to one of the other weavers. 
“Run! Tell the senora to bring hot soup and tortillas 

“Stay you, stay you,” he said gently to Marcos, who was bravely 
trying to stand. “Sit down here.” 

He led the boy to the empty stool. Marcos sat down upon it, and 
it was empty no longer. 

“This will be your place,” said the weaver kindly. “You shall run 
my errands and learn to be my spinner of threads.” 

Late that evening Marcos stood at the workshop door. He had 
drunk the hot soup and eaten the tortillas, and the good food felt com¬ 
forting in his stomach. In the room behind him the looms were silent; 
the workers had gone home, but he could hear the plump senora mov¬ 
ing about, preparing the little bed where he, Marcos, would sleep that 
night and for many nights to come. 

The little street was quiet. The patio was quiet. The trees threw 
clear black shadows on the white stones, and in the dark velvet sky 
above the stars gleamed softly. Marcos threw back his head to look up 
at them, smiling. 

“I have chosen well,” he said to himself. “I have found a good 
master. There are not too many people here, and just enough stars. 
I know.” 






















































































































































































































































































































